Politics and current affairs

A short, incisive and elegant book by a Harvard specialist in Islamic political thought, which analyses the dilemma posed by the huge popular support, among many Muslims, for explicitly Islamic forms of government.

The region’s key events provide ample material for this subtle re-examination: the fall of the shah, the three wars in the Persian Gulf, jihad in Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter’s half-success at peacemaking at Camp David in 1978 and Bill Clinton’s failure there two decades later.

Britain Since 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy.

By David Marquand.

Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 496 pages; £25

A rich, compelling and convincing account of recent British political history by a man who has experienced it as a member of parliament, a journalist and a distinguished academic historian.

With the patience of auditors and the passion of polemicists, two academics, one a Nobel prize-winning economist and the other a public-finance expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, take an unflinching look at the hidden cost of invading Iraq.

Convincingly overturns the usual analyses of the nature of China’s economy, and brilliantly predicts, a year ahead of other commentators, its steep decline.

When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change.

By Mohamed El-Erian.

McGraw Hill; 304 pages; $27.95 and £15.99

Ignore the in-your-face cover. This is a fluent and intelligent account of the credit crisis: why it happened and how to survive it. Winner of the 2008 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs business book of the year award.

The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World.

By Amar Bhidé.

Princeton University Press; 520 pages; $35 and £19.95

A counterintuitive view of technology and globalisation that will delight those who believe that American innovation is insulated from economic ups and downs.

A management guru explains why the net generation, who grew up playing video games and spending time on the internet, are not all messed up, as many people suspect, but have actually been improved by the experience.

Globality: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything.

By Hal Sirkin, Jim Hemerling and Arindam Bhattacharya.

Business Plus; 304 pages; $26.99 and £18.99

Hal Sirkin and two colleagues explore how rich-country multinationals face increasingly effective competition from new emerging-market corporate champions, which compete not just on lower costs but also on greater ingenuity and efficiency.

Goldman Sachs has long set the gold standard in finance, even though the current crisis nearly brought it down. With unprecedented access to insiders, Charles Ellis provides the best account yet of the rise of this investment bank and what makes it tick.

Allen Lane; 720 pages; £25. To be published in America by Harper in May

Andrew Roberts lays claim to the title of Britain’s finest contemporary military historian with this important analysis of grand strategy during the second world war, which, among other delights, vindicates that much maligned British way of doing things: the committee.

Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China.

By Philip P. Pan.

Simon & Schuster; 368 pages; $28. Picador; £14.99

Detailed profiles of 11 Chinese, mostly present day, which together provide a not very pretty snapshot of China’s political development. One of the best descriptions of what life has been like for many Chinese citizens during the past 15 years.

Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present.

By Jonathan Fenby.

Ecco Books; 816 pages; $34.95. Published in Britain as “The Penguin History of Modern China”; Allen Lane; £30

The extraordinary growth in China’s population, economic productivity and military grasp has not been matched, to anything like the same extent, by developments in the way the country is governed. Jonathan Fenby has written a much-needed new history that points to a coming crisis.

The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919.

By Mark Thompson.

Faber & Faber; 464 pages; £25. To be published in America by Basic Books in March

A startling indictment of the Italian state’s conduct during the first world war, which shows how Italy’s nationalist dream of expansion would turn into the Fascist nightmare.

The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum.

By Sarah Wise.

The Bodley Head; 240 pages; £20

An affecting history of life in the crowded slums of 19th-century London which traces, with great restraint, the links between poor housing, poverty and criminality.

Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Centre of the World.

By Roger Crowley.

Random House; 368 pages; $30. Faber and Faber; £20

How the clash of civilisations between Christianity and Islam came to be fought out during the Ottoman sieges of Rhodes and Malta and the battle of Lepanto, with some fairly familiar faults on both sides already becoming visible more than 500 years ago.

An elegant and insightful study of the Trinidad-born Nobel laureate who made his name as a novelist and chronicler of India and the Islamic world. A singular example of how good authorised biographies can, and should, be.

Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare.

By Jonathan Bate.

Random House; 496 pages; $35. Viking; £25

It is almost impossible to write something fresh about William Shakespeare. Yet Jonathan Bate has succeeded, with a sparkling and arresting portrait of the Bard and his world as discovered in his writings.

Science and technology

A frank and illuminating look at a generally neglected, but very important, aspect of human life.

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics.

Edited by Timothy Gowers, June Barrow-Green and Imre Leader.

Princeton University Press; 1,008 pages; $99 and £60

This is a panoramic view of modern mathematics. It is tough going in some places, but much of it is surprisingly accessible. A must for budding number-crunchers.

Bad Science.

By Ben Goldacre.

Fourth Estate; 352 pages; £12

A fine lesson in how to skewer the enemies of reason and the peddlers of cant and half-truths.

The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Duelling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York.

By Matthew Goodman.

Basic Books; 384 pages; $26 and £15.99

In retelling the story of how, in the 1830s, the New York Sun tried to persuade its readers there was life on the moon, Matthew Goodman vividly brings to life a town on the brink of becoming a world-class city.

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

By Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.

Yale University Press; 304 pages; $26 and £18

How behavioural economics affects everything—from what we eat in restaurants to our investments and pension choices.

Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population.

By Matthew Connelly.

Harvard University Press/Belknap; 544 pages; $35 and £22.95

A vivid account of how the road to controlling population growth in the 20th century was paved with good intentions and unpleasant policies that did not work.

A rich portrait of the urban poor, drawn not from statistics but from vivid tales of some of the 30,000 residents of Robert Taylor Homes, America’s biggest public housing scheme, on Chicago’s South Side.

A globe-trotting survey of the world’s lingua franca, which includes such nuggets as the word “chagrin”, derived from the Turkish for roughened leather, or scaly sharkskin, and “lens”, which comes from the Latin for “lentil”, or “window” meaning “eye of wind” in old Norse.